Free My Father's Notebook by Kader Abdolah Page B

pain. Something else. A feeling … how can I explain it? I wanted to go home.”
    And at last he was allowed to go home.
    “I got sick. I couldn’t mend carpets anymore. My head hurt. I used the wrong threads. Green instead of blue. That was bad. I went to the old man, laid my forehead on the back of his hand and wept.”
    The old man brought Akbar to the station and sent him home. After a long trip the train stopped in the middle of thenight at the station on Saffron Mountain. The conductor tapped Akbar’s shoulder to let him know he’d reached his stop. He got out and climbed up the mountain to begin a new life.
    He started to go home, then suddenly took another path. After an hour of walking up steep mountains and down into deep valleys, he arrived at the house of the prostitute.
    He knocked on her door. She didn’t open it. She was afraid it might be a drunk. He knocked again. Still she wouldn’t open the door. He called to her, “Aayaa yayayaya aaayaya ya ya aya aya ya.”
    “Is that you, Akbar?” she called from above. She opened the door, threw her arms around him and led him inside. He spent the night with her and all of the next day. Only when evening came did he finally go home.
      
    The next morning Aga Akbar stood in the town square and talked to the men about Isfahan. They stared at his fingers. The dyes that had discoloured his fingertips were very different from the ones they used. Isfahan’s blue had taken on the colour of its sky, its yellow had been borrowed from its ancient stones and its green was not at all like the grassy green of Saffron Mountain. Everyone realised that Akbar had learned new techniques, that he’d picked up Isfahan’s styles.
    Later he applied these techniques to his business. People now welcomed him into their homes more than ever.
    Had an ember fallen on your rug? No problem, Aga Akbar will mend it, he’ll work his magic and make the hole disappear. Had a rat gnawed its way through the bride’s dowry carpet? Don’t worry, don’t cry, we’ll go and get Aga Akbar!
    People received him in their homes as if he were an aristocrat. He behaved like a true craftsman, a man who was proud of his work. He never went anywhere without his leather satchel, the one he’d brought with him from Isfahan. He rode with it slung over his shoulder. When he went into someone’shouse, he tucked it under his arm, exactly as old Shamsololama had always done, threw back his shoulders and gestured, “Where’s the carpet?”
      
    One time Ishmael asked Kazem Khan, “Why did you make my father learn that particular craft?”
    “You see, my boy, carpet-weaving wasn’t actually a suitable occupation for us. Even the women in our household didn’t weave. It was the kind of thing that ordinary villagers did, farmers who had nothing else to do on long winter nights. I thought it would be the right job for him, but I soon realised it would make him miserable. He had to be free, he had to be able to get away. He wasn’t the kind of man who could spend years working on a single rug. He needed a job that could be done in a few hours, so that he could just get up and leave. That’s how I hit upon the idea of having him become a carpet-mender. It’s not boring work. In fact, it’s quite interesting. You have to use your head. You have to be an artist. Do you know what I mean? And I knew that your father had an artistic mind.”
    “An artistic mind?”
    “Yes, that of an artist, or a designer, or a … How can I explain it? People didn’t think in such terms in those days. You were supposed to work, weave, mow, plough, earn a living. What would you have done if you’d been in my position? Carpet-mending, my boy, that was the best kind of work he could do. There’s always a damaged carpet somewhere. He got to travel all over the place. It allowed him to earn a living and to express himself as an artist: to weave, dye, embellish and design. He could work his thoughts into the